A Surprise American Ally in Syria?

Writing at The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan makes the shocking case for a surprise de facto U.S. ally in the Syrian war.

Our Congress appears again to have abdicated its war powers.

Consider the forces that have turned Syria into a charnel house with 400,000 dead and millions injured, maimed and uprooted.

On the one side there is the regime of Bashar Assad and its allies — Hezbollah, Iran and Russia. Damascus buys its weapons from Moscow and has granted Russia its sole naval base in the Mediterranean. And Vladimir Putin protects his interests and stands by his friends.

To Iran, the Alawite regime of Assad is a strategic link in the Shia crescent that runs from Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus to South Beirut and Lebanon’s border with Israel.

If Syria falls to Sunni rebels, Islamist or democratic, that would mean a strategic loss for Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, which is why all have invested so much time, blood and treasure in this war.

If they are going to lose Syria, Assad, Iran, Hezbollah and the Russians are probably going to go down fighting. And should we decide to fight a war to take them down, we would find ourselves with such de facto allies as ISIS and the al-Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaida.

Have the hawks who want us to target Assad considered this?